==Images
and maps: Links to a great many
miniature paintings, etc.
from the period: *Columbia
Univ.*. Links to period maps from Columbia: *1700-50*
and
*1750-1800*.

==After
Aurangzeb: Aurangzeb dies in 1707,
still in the Deccan,
vainly
pursuing the Marathas. After a series of chaotic
succession struggles,
Muhammad Shah (1719-48) has a long and increasingly
ineffectual reign.
The Mughal throne gradually becomes a source of symbolic
legitimacy,
rather
than a real force in military and political affairs.
Discussion: *Ikram
Ch. 19*. Its power becomes limited first to the
area of Delhi, then
to the city itself; the *Imperial
Gazetteer* has a great deal to say about the
history of Delhi. (*Routes*)

==Local
rulers and trade networks thrive:
As Mughal power
wanes,
local rulers seek to cut their own deals, and Europeans
are eager to
get
a foothold. The result is a lively and complex
commercial network that
includes bazaars, piracy, raids for loot, military
actions, missionary
efforts, and even the sponsorship of religious
festivals.
Although
there's plenty going on in Bihar (*Anand
A. Yang*) and Bengal, the liveliest action centers
on the ports of the
Malabar
and Coromandel Coasts. (*Routes*)

==Bernard
Picart (1673-1733), a French engraver,
produces the
nine-volume
"Religious Ceremonies and Customs of All the Peoples of
the World"
(1722,
1728), which becomes widely influential throughout
Europe; his is just
one of a number of such collections of cultural
knowledge. (*Routes*)

==Punjabi
poetry makes itself felt: Bullhe Shah
(1680-1758) is,
like
Kabir, claimed by both Hindus and Muslims and loved for
his swingy folk
poetry (*the
south asian*); Waris Shah (1719-90) creates the
most famous
retelling
of the mystical folk romance "Hir Ranjha" (*Usborne
translation,
1874*; *musical
performances*).
Waris Shah also has his own movie, and the lovers Hir
and Ranjha have
no
fewer than three films to their credit.

==the
Navabs of Avadh (1720-1856): By
refusing a transfer to
Malwa
in 1727, Mughal governor Burhan ul-Mulk, now Saadat Khan
(r.1720-39),
politely
establishes his independent power base. As the first of
nine Nawabs of
Avadh, he helps pacify this rich but fractious province
in the Gangetic
heartland; under the Navabs, Lucknow and its Shi'a
aristocracy (*J.
R. I. Cole*) patronize a distinctive local
culture. The British
seize
the state in 1856; the *Imperial
Gazetteer* has a good deal to say about its
history. (*Routes*)

==Mir
and the Urdu ghazal: Mir Muhammad
Taqi "Mir" (1723-1810)
becomes one of the first creators--and one of the two
great masters--of
the preeminent romantic and mystical genre of lyric
poetry in Urdu, the
ghazal. Emerging from Persian ghazal, Urdu ghazal begins
at a high
level
of sophistication, and remains there until the post-1857
end of the
elite
Indo-Muslim cultural world (which includes many Hindus)
that provides
its
chief patrons. Discussion: *F.
W. Pritchett*. Mir spends his later years in
Lucknow after the
repeated
sacking of Delhi (*Rosie
Llewellyn-Jones*). On Mir's ghazals: *A
Garden of Kashmir*.

==the
Nizams of Hyderabad claim their
independence (1724): Asaf
Jah Nizam al-Mulk, a Mughal governor of the Deccan,
quietly implements
the independence of Hyderabad. The seven Nizams of
Hyderabad rule
India's
largest princely state, covering most of the Deccan,
until 1948; though
over time they are increasingly under British tutelage.
On Hyderabad: *Imperial
Gazetteer*; also *My
Life:
being the Autobiography of Nawab Server-ul-Mulk
Bahadur* . (*Routes*)

==Jaipur
and the Jantar Mantars (c.1725): Raja
Savai Jai Singh (*wiki*),
an
important Mughal officer, not only founds the city of
Jaipur (*wiki*),
with its beautiful fort and palace, but soon equips it
with a
remarkable
astronomical observatory, the Jantar Mantar (*jantarmantar*)
based
on that of Ulugh Beg in Samarqand (1420) on the *silk
road*. He builds a similar observatory in Delhi as
well, and
smaller
ones elsewhere. Images of the Delhi one: *Berger*.
Images of the Jaipur one: *google image search*. Discussion:
*art
and architecture*; *C.
Hartley*. On the history of Jaipur state: *Imperial
Gazetteer*. (*Routes*)

==Baji
Rao sacks the Delhi suburbs (1738):
Under their new
Peshwa,
Baji Rao I (1700-40) (*wiki*),
the Maratha armies make a lightning raid on Delhi. They
reach, and
loot,
the surrounding suburbs (including Talkatora) before
retreating with
equal
speed. Mughal forces under Saadat Khan and others are
caught off guard
and can't react in time. On the crucial Maratha prince
and power-broker
Madhav Rao Sindhia (1730-94): *wiki*;
*H.
G. Keene, 1891*

==Nadir
Shah sacks Delhi (1739): The Iranian
ruler Nadir Shah (*encyclopedia*;
*wiki*)
invades
India and sacks Delhi, taking back with him the Peacock
Throne
(*wiki*),
the
*Koh-i Nur*
diamond,
and 300 artisans. The weakness of the Mughals is by now
clear to
everybody.

==Ahmad
Shah Abdali sacks Delhi repeatedly in
a series of raids
(1748-61)
(*wiki*).
He
begins as one of Nadir Shah's officers, and after Nadir
Shah's death
he becomes an Afghan tribal ruler in his own right and
decides to
continue
this highly profitable activity. Although he doesn't get
such
astonishing
loot, he makes a number of raids, so that during the
middle part of the
century Delhi is never secure, and never really has time
to recover. Finally, he allies himself with Mughal
nobles to defeat the Marathas
in
the *battle
of Panipat, 1761*; *his
tomb*

== Clive
and the Battle of Plassey (1757): The
battle (*wiki*)
is,
militarily speaking, nothing much: the East India
Company's forces
under Robert Clive, buoyed by earlier victories in Arcot
and elsewhere, defeat Nawab Siraj ad-Daula in a brief
skirmish decided
not by force of arms but by a prearranged deal, as Clive
himself
reports:
*Internet
Sourcebook*. But this foothold opens the way to
the battle of Buxar (1764) and the
Company's
assumption of the revenue collection (and governance)
for the whole
huge
province of Bengal (1772). On this period: *Imperial
Gazetteer*; on the whole colonial history of
Bengal: *Imperial
Gazetteer*. On Clive's career: *Macaulay*.
Further discussion: *Sources
of Indian Traditions*. (*Routes*)

==Dean
Mahomed (1759-1851), the first South
Asian Muslim to
record
his own life story in English, emerges as a remarkable
character whose
life spans the cultural divide between North India
(where he fights
enthusiastically
with the Company's army) and England (where he later
becomes a sort of
massage-physician). For the full story, see Michael
Fisher's edition of
Dean Mahomed's letters: *Univ.
of
California Press*.

==The
first Resident in Avadh (1772): The
Company sends to the
court of Navab Shuja ud-Daulah of Avadh (*wiki*)
a "Resident" to represent its interests. After the
Navab's major defeat
in the battle of Buxar, he is unable to refuse. The
British East India
Company now begins to surround and encapsulate the
"native states" (*wiki*).

==Col.
Polier and his letters (1773-79): Col.
Antoine Louis
Henri
Polier (1741-95) is one of a number of Europeans,
especially Frenchmen,
serving at the court of Navab Shuja ud-Daulah and living
very Lakhnavi
lives. His Persian letters to his two wives and many
business
associates
form a unique source of cultural information.
Discussion: *Peter
Marshall*. (*Routes*)

==Claude
Martin and his schools: Another
Frenchman in Lucknow,
Claude
Martin (1735-1800), is such a successful wheeler-dealer
that he becomes
the second richest man in the city (after the Navab).
When he dies, he
leaves his extravagant mansion and huge fortune for the
founding of
schools
in Lucknow, Calcutta, and Lyons, France. Discussion: *Rukun
Advani*. More on the Lucknow school, La
Martiniere: *Rosie
Llewellyn-Jones*. (*Routes*)

==Sir
William Jones (1746-94), a brilliant
polymath and admirer
of the American independence movement, founds the
Asiatic Society of
Bengal
(1784); works as a judge in Calcutta; writes extensively
about India;
first
recognizes the linguistic sisterhood among Latin, Greek,
and Sanskrit;
and translates, along with legal and historical texts,
both Persian
ghazals
by Hafiz, and Kalidasa's masterpiece "Shakuntala."
Sources on his work:
*Columbia
Univ.*. (*Routes*)

==Ghulam
Qadir sacks Delhi (1787-88): The
Afghan chieftain invades
Delhi and is driven out, then returns the next year with
more success;
among many other cruelties, he blinds the hapless Mughal
emperor Shah
Alam
II. The Marathas hunt him down and kill him, and then
find it expedient
to restore the blinded Shah Alam II to the throne.

==Tipu
Sultan of Mysore (r.1782-99): Tipu
Sultan (1750?-99),
following
in the footsteps of his capable father Haidar Ali, makes
energetic and
creative efforts to drive out the British (*Haidar
Ali
and
Tipu Sultan*);
he seeks with some (but not enough) success, to enlist
the French as
allies
in this campaign. His neighbors, victims of his
territorial conquests,
help the British defeat him. About his life and times: *BBC
Gallery*. (*Routes*)

==James
Achilles Kirkpatrick (1764-1805),
British Resident at the
court of the Nizam of Hyderabad, contrives to marry
Begam Khair
un-Nisa,
a lady closely connected to the court, and converts to
Islam in the
process--all
this in the midst of the conflict with Tipu Sultan
(1799-1800). He and
other such "white Mughals" are the subject of a
fascinating and
carefully
researched account by *William
Dalrymple*.

==Francois
Balthasar Solvyns, a Belgian, comes to
Calcutta in 1790,
hoping to succeed as a coach-painter.
Instead,
over the next fourteen years he creates a remarkable
body of
over
600 colored etchings "descriptive of the Manners,
Customs and Dresses
of
the Hindoos" of Calcutta. Thanks to the *Univ.
of Texas*, these are now available online. (*Routes*)